Van 't Hoff Institute for Molecular Sciences

Fleur van Beek wins poster prize at national chemistry conference

Interactive poster design explains novel analytical chemistry concept

13 December 2016

PhD Student Fleur van Beek of the Van 't Hoff Institute for Molecular Sciences (HIMS) was awarded the COAST prize for best analytical chemistry poster during the annual Dutch chemistry conference CHAINS 2016 held last week in Veldhoven. She designed an "interactive" poster explaining the MAnIAC project of the HIMS Analytical Chemistry group.

MAnIAC is an acronym for "Making Analytically Incompatible Approaches Compatible". This project aims to provide a platform based on existing analytical instruments, where users can interchange various modules to suit the analysis of their specific samples. Fleur van Beek decided to visualize this concept by using magnetic strips on her poster. This enabled the CHAINS participants to configure their own analytical system using the MAnIAC platform.

The poster award was presented to Fleur van Beek by Arjan Mank from Philips who especially appreciated her effort to draw her audience in, as well as her enthusiasm in explaining the MAnIAC concept.

"I have been working on my PhD since April this year, so I did not have many results to present yet", Fleur explains. "Hence, I tried to communicate the idea behind the MAnIAC project instead. I'm creative by nature and I'm glad I was able to express this in my poster."

Van Beek is proud and happy to receive the poster prize awarded by COAST, the national Dutch collaborative effort in Analytical Sciences. "I am very glad that my creativity and my attempt to attract the audience with magnets captivated the jury. I really hope that this encourages others to make their posters more fun and interactive so that their ideas and findings become more deeply ingrained into the minds and imagination of the public."

Analysis of complex samples

The MAnIAC platform is mostly based around comprehensive two-dimensional liquid chromatography (LC×LC) and is meant to analyse complex samples which require comprehensive analysis in order for the partner companies to, for example, learn about the influence of their raw materials, steer their processing or select the cellular strains with the most desirable characteristics.

In order to obtain the most coveted information, the idea is to separate the complex samples, then react or degrade the analytes in a reactor, after which the products can again be separated or otherwise analysed to gain as much information as possible. Main goals within the MAnIAC project are to develop an immobilized microbe reactor and an immobilized enzyme reactor. These reactors are meant to be utilized as aids in the acquisition of comprehensive information. The latter is already well on its way thanks to the efforts of Dr Bert Wouters who is postdoc researcher with the project.